Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1887-10-12
PURSUING SWORD-FISH.
Fishing That Partakes of the Ma
ture Of the Chase.
The Apparatus Employed I'm the Capture
of SwordG sh-An Instructive Chat =
with the Chief OF the U. 8.
Fish Commission.


"The pursuit Of the swordfish," Prof.
Goode said to a New York Mll aud EE-
press reporter, 'is much more exciting
than ordinary fishing, for il resembles the
hunting of large animals upon the land
and pertakes more OF the nature of the
chase. There is no slow or careful batting
and patient waiting, and no disappoint-
ment caused by the accidental capture OF
worthless bait-stealers. Tho game Is seen
and followed, aud outwltted by wary tao
tics and killed By strength of arm and
skill. The swordfsh Is powerful antag-
onist, sometimes, and sends his pursuer
vessel into harbor leaking, and almost
sinking, from injuries he has inflicted.
have known a vessel to be struck by
wounded swordfish as many Us twenty
times in q season. There is even the spice
of personal danger to give SAVIOR to the
chase, for the men arc occasionally in
jured by the Infatuated fish. One Of Cap
tain Ashby's crew was severely wounded
by swordfsh, which thrust his beak
through the oak floor of a boat on which he
was standing, and penetrated about two
inches in his naked heol. The strange
fascination draws men to this pursuit when
they have once learned its charms. An old
swordhsherman, who had followed the
pursuit for twenty years, told me that
when he was on tie cruising ground he
fshed all night in his dreams, and that
many q time he has bruised his hands and
rubbed the skin OF his knuckles by striking
them against the ceiling of his bunk when
he raised his arms to thrust the harpoon
into visionary monster swordfishes."
The professor says that many swordfislI
attain tho weight of 400 and 500 pounds
each, while some grow to coo pounds. The
largest ever taken by Captain Ashby, who
for twenty years was n swordflshcrman,
was killed on the shoals back Of Edgar
town, Mass, and when salted weighed $50
pounds. Its live weight must have been
as much os 750 or 500 po, nds. Its sword
measured nearly six feet. The only
individsial fish OF which there hos been
kept the exact measurements was taken or
Seaconnet, r. l., July %, 1874. This was
seven feet seven inches long, and weighed
lib pounds. The average weight Of those
about Block Island is 200 pounds.
For many years 800 to COO Of these fish
have been taken annually on the New
England coast. 1t is not unusual for
twenty-five or more to be seen in ths
course OF a single days cruising, and
sometimes as many as this are visible
from the masthead at one time. The
swordfish comes into Eastern waters In
pursuit of food, proying on menhaden and
mackerel. The appearance of the fish at
tho surface depends apparently ON
temperature. They are seen only on quiet
summer days, in the morning before ten
and eleven, and in the afternoon after
four O'Clock. Old fishermen say they rise
when the mackercl rise, and when the
mackerel go down they go down also
The fish when swimming ct the surface
usually allows its dorsai fin and the up
per lobe OF its caudal fin to be visible, pro-
Jecting out OF the water several inches.
1t is this habit which enables the fishermen
to detect the presence Of the fish. 10
swims slowly along, and the fishing
schooner with light breeze finds no DIFF
iculty in overtaking It.
When excited, Prof. Goode saws, the
swordnsh's motions are most quick and
nervous. The fish are sometimes seen to
leap entirely out of the water. Tho pointed
head, the fms of the back and abdomen
simply fitting into grooves, the absence Of
ventrals, the long, 1.-the, muscular body,
sloping slowly to the tail, fit il for the
most rapid and forcible movement through
the water. 1t strikes with the accumulate
ed force of fifteen double headed ham
mers. Its velocity is equal to that of a
swivel-shot and is Gs dangerous In its ef-
fects as heavy artillery projectile.
Many very curious instances are on record
of the encounters of this fish with other
fishes, or of their attacks upon ships.
What can be the inducement for IL to at
tack objects so much larger than itself i5
il hard to surmise. 1t surely seems as if
a temporary insanity sometimes takes pos
session of the fish. An old swordflshnr-
man told Mr.. Blackford that his vessel
had been struck twenty times. There are.
however, many instances of entirely un-
provoked assault on vessels at sea.
The apparatus employed in the capture
of swordash, Prof. Goode says, Is simple.
1t is a barpoon with a detachable head
When the fish is struck the head of the
harpoon remains in the body of the fish.
and carries with it light rope, which is
either made fast or held by a man in a
small boat, or Is attached TO some kind Of
buoy, which is towed through the water
by the struggling fish, and which mafks
its whereabouts after death. Tho har-
poon consists Of pole fifteen or sixteen
feet in length, usually OF hickory or some
other hard wood, upon which the bark has
been left, so that the harpooner may have
a firmer hand grip. This pole is from ON
inch and q half to two inches in diameter,
and at one end is provided with an iron
rod or shank about two feet long and i've
eighths of an inch In diameter. This shank
is fastened to the pole by means of con-
ical or elongated, cuplike expansion at
one end, which gets over the sharpened
end of the pole, to which it is secured by
tends from one end of the pole
to the point whore It joins the
shank, and in this line Is tied loop, by
which is nlGdo fast another short line,
which secures the pole to the vessel or
boat, so that when it is thrown at the fish
it can not be lost. Upon the end Of the
shank fits the head OF the harpoon.
The swordiish are always harpooned
from the end Of the bowsprit of q sailing
vessel. 1t is next to impossible to ap-
proach them in q small boat. All vessels
regularly engaged in this fishery are sup
plicd with q special apparatus, called a
crest" or "pulpit," for the support OF the
harpooner as he stands on the bowsprit,
and this Is almost essential to success
When the fish is from six to ton feet In
front Of the vessel It is struck. The har.
poon is never thrown, the pole being too
long. The strong arm of the harpooner
punches the dnrt into the back OF the Ash
right at the side of the high dorsal fin, and
the pole is withdrawn and fastened again
to- its place. When the dart has been
fastened to the fish the line Is allowed to
run opt as far as the fish will carry IL, and
Is then passed in a small boat, which IL
towing at the stern. Two men jump into
this, and pulling in upon the line until the
fish Is brought in alongside, 1t is then
killed with whale-lance or a whale,
spade, which is struck into the gills.
THERE are forty EIGHT arches, tunnels.